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Topic: My Genos Review (Read 381 times)

I am a long-time Yamaha arranger user. Started with a T2, moved up to T4, and finally T5-76. I also own Yamaha's N2 hybrid piano (which is a marvelous instrument).

This fall, I took the plunge, sold my T5, and got a Genos. The purchase was sight unseen and unheard (unless you count the YouTube demos). You are free to call me a Yamaha fanboy.

I am extremely pleased with the Genos. I wanted to write a short review and focus on some aspects on the keyboard that may not have been covered and may be of value to some contemplating the instrument.

The first impressions, at they say, are everything. The instrument looks very professional and seems of high quality. The factory speakers are nice as well. Upon setting everything up and turning the unit, I pressed the demos to hear the instrument. Initially, I was a little let-down to be honest as the speakers had a strange "plastic" resonance. I had to leave for work so I decided to leave the unit on in demo mode and keep playing at a medium volume. When I returned, few hours later, I noticed that the resonance was gone and everything sounded great (no, I did not have a drink before my re-listen). I suspect that the speakers had to break-in a little. Overall, the speaker and sub are fine but keep in mind the volume is only adequate for home play and listening and the volume is turned at 75%-80% for normal playing.

BTW, For those that have the "legacy" L7S stand (silver), I have good news. Your Genos will fit on that stand just fine so no need to buy the black stand. See below...

So why did I decide to sell the T5 and move up to Genos? For few reasons. First, I was playing the T5 for 4 years and honestly I got tired of its sound. Second, I wanted something with fresher and simpler styles. Lastly, the simplified UI and overall clean-up of the instrument appealed to me. I must say, I was not disappointed.

First, the styles are of course all reworked. Most of them sound a lot less busy. When playing T5, I often turned bunch of channels off; the arrangements were so busy. On a Genos, I often leave the style as-is or perhaps turn off just the piano channel (since I often play piano as lead). The UI is vastly improved. Still a little counter-intuituve for some things (e.g. the quick recording file export or favorites selection) but much better. More importantly, this new UI gives Yamaha to improve, fix, add features via firmware updates.

Some of the voices are just outstanding. On T5, I found it hard to play some Super Articulation voices so they sound realistic. I mean, yeah they sounded realistic initially but after few bars into a solo you could definitely tell this was a keyboardist playing. I must say Genos is vastly improved in this respect, even without resorting to using the S Art buttons (now there are 3 of them).

For those that play in the Full Keyboard and Full Keyboard AI, I have good news to report. It seems that the programming has been improved (especially in the Full Keyboard AI) and the board is much better at figuring out chords. I play a lot of Jazz and as you know the harmony is often complex and quickly-changing. With the Genos, for the most part, I can just play in the Full Keyboard AI and, at least the bass line, figures out the root correctly almost always.

To sum up, the board is just so much more musical and playable whereas after a while the Tyros sounded artificial and honestly I stopped playing it and moved to just playing my N2 piano. I do not think I will get bored with the Genos nearly as quickly. Less is more as they say, and I think Genos' sparser arrangements are a step in the right direction.